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Religious Education

At St Edward’s, our curriculum in Religious Education will equip our students with an excellent understanding of a variety of world views, a highly reflective approach to life and the ability to make a positive impact on the lives of the people that they share their lives with.

Curriculum Intent

Religious Education helps you to better understand yourself, those around you and the values and principles that people choose to live by. Many subjects can help you to make the next step in life, but by encouraging you to consider who you are, what you believe and why, RE will also help you to decide what those steps should be. RE will introduce you to some of the existential questions that philosophers have been considering for thousands of years. However, as an academically challenging subject, RE will help you to develop in the four key transferable skills of knowledge, understanding, discernment and personal response.  The content RE curriculum is influenced by our Joint Church status and facilitates the formation of faith in whatever religious tradition you are part of.

Course Contact

Mr Trevor Willis
RE Subject Leader

Key Stage Three

At Key Stage Three, students complete a spiralled curriculum as they revisit the themes of Identity, Tradition, Curiosity, Revelation and Diversity through the study of the following topics: 

Year 7 

  • Why are we here (What is the nature and purpose of our school?) 

  • Why are there different Christian denominations? 

  • Does God exist? 

  • Who are the people of God? 

  • What does it mean to be a Hindu? 

  • Who are the social justice heroes? 

Year 8 

  • What would Jesus do? 

  • What does it mean to be a Jew? 

  • What is love? 

  • What do the parables teach us? 

  • What does it mean to be a Buddhist? 

  • Is all life sacred? 

Year 9 

  • What do I believe and why? 

  • What does it mean to be a Muslim? 

  • Why is there suffering? 

  • Who killed Jesus and why? 

  • What does it mean to be a Sikh? 

  • Why do we study GCSE RE? 

Key Stage Four

GCSE RE is a vibrant subject that helps prepare students for modern life in a rapidly changing world. It teaches students about different belief systems and how these have an impact upon peoples’ lives and the decisions they make. GCSE RE at St Edward’s is a very successful subject with many students consistently achieving their target grade or higher. 

The GCSE course is rigorous and engaging.  Students learn about the beliefs, teachings and practices of two main religions; Christianity and Judaism. They also examine how these religions respond to a range of contemporary moral issues. 

RE helps students to develop and refine a number of key transferable skills such as evaluation and critical thinking. The philosophical and theological elements help students to think in abstract ways and the ethical and moral dimensions encourage empathy and respect for the views of others.  There is a focus on the use of scripture which encourages students to engage with original texts and be selective in their use of evidence to support an argument.  These skills will help students in their studies for other subjects and help to prepare them for many KS5 (Sixth Form) courses too.

Method of Assessment

Exam Board: WJEC Eduqas

3 external exams at the end of Year 11:

  • Religious, Philosophical and Ethical Studies in the Modern World – (50%)
  • Study of Christianity (25%)
  • Study of Judaism (25%)

Key Stage Five

A Level Religious Studies

Religious Studies is a popular subject; both at St Edward’s and nationally, in the UK more than 20,000 students take the final exams each year.  More and more students have opted to study the subject at Key Stage 5 due to the diverse range of interesting topics that it covers.  Students are generally very successful too; a very high percentage of our students achieve A*-C grades every year and almost all students either meet or exceed their target grade.

If you enjoy academic rigor, are a deep thinker, have a curious mind and have ever wondered about such things as the existence of God or how we decide the difference between right and wrong, then this is the course for you!

Learn more

Future Pathways

RE is widely recognised and valued as a rigorous academic subject, but it is much more than that. It provides students with another qualification to help them take their next steps into education, training or employment, but GCSE RE will also help them to explore their own beliefs and values so that they can consider more deeply what direction they want their life to take. It is a subject that will challenge them in many ways and help to prepare them for life in a changing and challenging world.  

In the Sixth Form, students can continue their study and the A Level course allows for further exploration of some of the ideas touched upon at GCSE as well as introducing exciting new concepts. The main areas of study are Philosophy of Religion, Religious Ethics and Developments in Christian thought. The A Level is usually very popular with many students opting to study it. 

Student Destinations

University of Kent - Philosophy and Religious Studies 

King's College London - Philosophy, Politics and Economics 

Southampton University - Psychology

Oxford University - Law

Swansea University - Criminology and Criminal Justice

Student Testimonials

“What I most enjoy about RE is learning about how religious beliefs effect how people live their lives.”

Kali, KS3 RE student

“The thing I like most about RE is finding out the reasons why people believe the things that they do.”

Mikaela, KS4 RE student 

“RE is one of my favourite subjects because I really enjoy exploring concepts from philosophers that most people have never heard of!”

Quinn, KS5 RE student